Computer project a €34m write off

CREDIT unions are to write off the €34 million they lost on a failed computer project.

Pursuing the matter through the courts might just send good money after bad, delegates at their biennial conference agreed.

They voted overwhelmingly in favour of writing off the money spent on the failed ISIS computer project. The new system was to be a huge IT boost to credit unions nationwide.

But the system proved incompatible with the needs of the movement.

A report by the League Board and ILCUTECH, the company set up to develop the computer project, recommended no legal action be taken to recover the millions lost.

Meanwhile, in a report to the conference, the League Review Commission’s independent chairperson Phil Flynn said credit unions have embraced reforms proposed in the past.

He said staff had embraced the process of change with “earnestness and diligence.”

Delegates attending the meeting also voted in favour of a new funding system for the league.

Under the new system, the league’s 534 credit unions will no longer pay a single lump sum annually but will make separate payments for affiliation, life insurance premia on loans and contributions to the Savings Protection Scheme.

The meeting was told the new funding system would inject much greater transparency into the process.

The proposal was one of the key recommendations contained in the Review Commission report published in April 2002.